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For Clintons, Delicate Dance of Married and Public Lives

Bill and Hillary Clinton flew to Chicago together last month to deliver speeches a few hours and a few miles apart. And like any couple, they thought about having dinner at day's end. But life is not so simple when you are married to a Clinton.

The former president kept a low profile and left early for Washington, in part to avoid distracting the news media from his wife's speech. They decided later that dinner would not work, so Mr. Clinton did what he often does: He rounded up some familiar faces — former aides including Joe Lockhart and Mike McCurry — and went out for a late bite at Lauriol Plaza, the bustling Tex-Mex restaurant in Dupont Circle. Only afterward did the Clintons end up at home together.

Mr. Clinton is rarely without company in public, yet the company he keeps rarely includes his wife. Nights out find him zipping around Los Angeles with his bachelor buddy, Ronald W. Burkle, or hitting parties and fund-raisers in Manhattan; she is yoked to work in Washington or New York — her Senate career and political ambitions consuming her time.

When the subject of Bill and Hillary Clinton comes up for many prominent Democrats these days, Topic A is the state of their marriage — and how the most dissected relationship in American life might affect Mrs. Clinton's possible bid for the presidency in 2008.

Democrats say it is inevitable that in a campaign that could return the former president to the White House, some voters would be concerned or distracted by Mr. Clinton's political role and the episode that led the House to vote for his impeachment in 1998.

"There's no question that it's a complicated candidacy for a lot of voters because of the history of that relationship and what they've been through," said Leon E. Panetta, Mr. Clinton's chief of staff from 1994 to 1997. "They've been through a lot of challenges as a couple, though in the end if you're with them together, you know there's something there that basically bonds them."

The dynamics of a couple's marriage are hard to gauge from the outside, even for a couple as well known as the Clintons. But interviews with some 50 people and a review of their respective activities show that since leaving the White House, Bill and Hillary Clinton have built largely separate lives — partly because of the demands of their distinct career paths and partly as a result of political calculations.

The effect has been to raise Senator Clinton's profile on the public radar while somewhat toning down Mr. Clinton's; he has told friends that his No. 1 priority is not to cause her any trouble. They appear in the public spotlight methodically and carefully: The goal is to position Mrs. Clinton to run for president not as a partner or a proxy, but as her own person.

Many of those interviewed were granted anonymity to discuss a relationship for which the Clintons have long sought a zone of privacy. The Clintons and, for the most part, their aides declined to cooperate for this article and urged others not to cooperate as well. Their spokesmen, Jay Carson (his) and Philippe Reines (hers), provided a statement about the relationship:

"She is an active senator who, like most members of Congress, has to be in Washington for part of most weeks. He is a former president running a multimillion-dollar global foundation. But their home is in New York, and they do everything they can to be together there or at their house in D.C. as often as possible — often going to great lengths to do so. When their work schedules require that they be apart they talk all the time."

Since the start of 2005, the Clintons have been together about 14 days a month on average, according to aides who reviewed the couple's schedules. Sometimes it is a full day of relaxing at home in Chappaqua; sometimes it is meeting up late at night. At their busiest, they saw each other on a single day, Valentine's Day, in February 2005 — a month when each was traveling a great deal. Last August, they saw each other at some point on 24 out of 31 days. Out of the last 73 weekends, they spent 51 together. The aides declined to provide the Clintons' private schedule.

Aides say the two want as much private time together as possible; last fall, for instance, Mr. Clinton left Manhattan for home to squeeze in a few hours with Mrs. Clinton before turning around for a flight out of Newark. Mr. Clinton has told his staff that he would rather not be in Washington when his wife is not there, aides said.

Photo

The Clintons last month in a
rare appearance together.Credit
Haraz N. Ghanbari/Associated Press

Friends — eager to smooth any rough edges on the relationship — tell old-married-couple stories of them gardening, playing Scrabble, and dining out at Le Cirque, Rasika, and Bayou in Harlem with old pals like the former party leader Terry McAuliffe, the power broker Vernon Jordan and others. On Christmas Eve, they wandered through the near-empty Chappaqua Village Market together, noticed by the occasional fellow shopper.

Rarely, however, do the Clintons appear in public when they are together. That is largely driven by their careers, but it is also partly by choice. Mr. Clinton has become involved in a legion of causes that have taken him out of the country, like as AIDS in Africa and third-world poverty. He sometimes takes part in her strategy sessions, but the sensitivity about his political role is so great that her advisers differed on his influence and frequency of participation — though all agreed that at home, his sway is felt.

Yet in choosing to keep their public lives separate, people around the Clintons say, there is a political calculus at work, beyond the natural evolution in a marriage that has had plenty of stresses and betrayals.

Mrs. Clinton may be the only Democrat in America who cannot look at Bill Clinton as an unalloyed political asset. He is a complicated figure for his wife, who has grown from a controversial first lady, while intertwined with him, into a popular senator by standing on her own two feet.

"Her national appeal and national strength is not based upon her relationship with Bill Clinton, but her extraordinary stature and success as a U.S. senator," said Robert Zimmerman, a Democratic donor and supporter of the couple.

Democrats preparing for 2008 describe the political challenge this way: Mrs. Clinton could prosper as a presidential candidate, yet the return of "the Clintons" could revive memories including the oft-derided two-for-the-price-of-one appeal of his 1992 presidential campaign, Mrs. Clinton's role in the universal health care debacle, and the soap opera of infidelity.

Because of Mr. Clinton's behavior in the White House, tabloid gossip sticks to him like iron filings to a magnet. Several prominent New York Democrats, in interviews, volunteered that they became concerned last year over a tabloid photograph showing Mr. Clinton leaving B.L.T. Steak in Midtown Manhattan late one night after dining with a group that included Belinda Stronach, a Canadian politician. The two were among roughly a dozen people at a dinner, but it still was enough to fuel coverage in the gossip pages.

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Just as it is difficult to predict how voters would feel about Mrs. Clinton as a presidential candidate, Clinton advisers say, it is hard to foresee how they would judge the Clintons' baggage in the context of their third White House bid.

"There are a lot of people who will work for her if she runs for president and who are worried about the relationship," said Lanny J. Davis, an old friend of the Clintons' and a lawyer who helped see the president through his scandals in the White House. "The conventional wisdom is that the relationship might hurt her — all those old memories and scandals will be evoked. But I'm betting, and maybe this is wishful thinking, that that's not correct."

Donna Brazile, a Democratic political strategist, said it was impossible to deal the former president out of any bid by his wife, especially given Mr. Clinton's high profile.

"At the same time, voters aren't interested in the Clintons as a couple as much as they're interested in what Mrs. Clinton is doing or saying," she said.

Photo

The Clintons at the recent unveiling of their portraits. For Mrs. Clinton, seeking her own political identity, her famous husband is a mixed blessing.Credit
David Scull for The New York Times

Still, it was only a few years ago that the Clinton relationship was the stuff of best-selling books and saucy debates on television talk shows. In private, too, the marriage was under a microscope when the Clintons sought counseling, as Mrs. Clinton disclosed in her memoirs. Some of their friends said when they left the White House, they also tried to leave behind the bad blood of the scandal caused by Mr. Clinton's involvement with Monica S. Lewinsky, a White House intern. But other friends said they saw tension and disappointment in the marriage. For a time the new senator considered Washington home, putting energy into work and entertaining at the new Clinton mansion on Embassy Row, while Mr. Clinton hunkered down in New York to write his memoirs and work on new projects.

"Over time she came to consider Chappaqua home, too, and she likes spending time there with the president when they can find the time," said one longtime friend of the couple's, who was granted anonymity because the Clintons did not want this person to speak. "That says a lot about the state of their marriage.

"She needs to be in her own separate orbit, so if something explodes in his world, she will have at least some space and distance to manage it," this friend said.

Some friends say that they do not notice any tension now, though they are not sure when, or how, it lifted.

"Who knows how any couple conquers the issues in their marriage, but they did it," said Chris Korge, a Democratic fund-raiser who is close to both Clintons. "It's like when he bought her a new diamond ring recently, you just saw the look in her face. When someone shows you something like that, 'This is what Bill bought me,' kind of gleaming, it meant something to get it — it meant more to her that he bought it for her than what it actually was."

Yet even now, the couple is on a constant learning curve about the interplay of politics and their marriage. When the Clintons appeared at Coretta Scott King's funeral in February, several Democrats remarked that the former president's emotive tone and remarks were pitch perfect — and that Mrs. Clinton sounded starchy by comparison.

Partly as a result, Mr. Clinton is often sent to political events on his own, instead of introducing her, standing by her side, or sitting raptly at her important speeches like an admiring spouse. Alan Patricof, a New York fund-raiser who is an ally of the Clintons, said it was Mr. Clinton's solo appearances on behalf of his wife that made both of them sparkle, such as at a recent fund-raiser that Mr. Patricof attended.

"It was all about Hillary, about why she was an effective senator, how hard she was working," he said.

Approaching 60 and with major heart surgery not yet two years behind him, Mr. Clinton has been more reflective in public about the marriage than Mrs. Clinton, who is 58.

When they appeared together at a Manhattan fund-raiser in December, the former president said he had sometimes "kicked myself" for encouraging her to run for office. There were times he wished she were not in the Senate so they could travel more, learn more, he said.

When Mrs. Clinton joined him onstage, Mr. Clinton gave her a kiss on the forehead, and then stepped away. Mrs. Clinton appeared a little choked up. Moments later, as she recalled their 30 years of marriage, she looked out into the dimly lighted room to try to find him.

"I'm so grateful to you, Bill, wherever you are," she said.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: For Clintons, Delicate Dance Of Married and Public Lives. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe